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Battered, but not beat

23 February 2002

THE Hubble Space Telescope is being battered as it orbits Earth. It has
suffered 571 hits from high-speed space debris during over ten years of
operation, according to a photographic survey of the telescope’s exterior in
1999 (Orbital Debris Quarterly News online, vol 7, issue 1).

Collisions with millimetre-scale particles at speeds reaching 36,000
kilometres per hour have left centimetre-sized craters in Hubble’s exterior. But
none has caused significant damage, say NASA officials. In fact, the continued
peppering is a useful way of keeping tabs on orbital debris. Counting the
pockmarks is one of the few ways to …